# 4 - Cleaner fish and shrimp - Again, not effective, for one, cleaner wrasse have not been shown to eat this parasite at all. I am not sure why they will not, but it may have to do with how deeply the parasite embeds itself into the fish. As far as cleaner shrimp, again, I know of nothing to date that shows they also eat this parasite or not. But for the sake of argument, lets say they did, they would still be ineffective, if you have ever seen a cleaning session between a cleaner and a fish, you would notice right away that they are not very good at cleaning the entire fish at one time, and keeping in mind that all it takes is one adult parasite to detach and make it to the sand bed to reproduce, then I would not want to bet my fish on a sloppy eater. Along with the fact that this parasite will also embed deeply in the gills, even a good cleaning would still leave enough adults behind to carry on the family name.
# 5 - Other treatment methods - While there are a few other methods to kill this parasite, such as copper and other "medications", they fail to address our needs as coral reef hobbyists, copper itself may kill the parasite but can not be used in our tanks since it will kill all our corals and inverts as well. While this treatment method may be effective in a quarantine tank, most hobbyists again fail to realize that the parasite is still within the tank itself. After a week of copper treatment, the fish is usually placed right back into the aquarium only to become infected again. Remember this parasites life cycle and why we must leave the aquarium without fish for six weeks. Any treatment that removes the fish from the aquarium and kills the parasite is doomed to failure if the aquarium itself is allowed to have fish remaining within it or the treated fish is placed back into the tank before the tank's 6 week period of having no fish within it. So why subject any of our fish to copper, which can be lethal also, when all the fish are going to have to remain outside the main tank for 6 weeks anyways, we might as well use a far less stressful method (hypo salinity) during that 6 week period.
Reef safe medications - There are plenty of products claiming to be effective against this parasite while in the presence of other inverts and corals. Most are ineffective for a few reasons. They are either diluted to the point that they cause corals no long term harm and may temporarily suppress one of the parasites life cycles, and for awhile, the tank may appear to be Ich free only to have it reappear again. The makers of these treatments fail to take into account that the adult parasite embeds deeply into the fish and its mucus covering, thus affording it some protection against external treatment methods. While embedded, this parasite may be invisible to us. Given this, along with the fact that the population of Ich may have been reduced, giving the impression that it is gone, again, remembering its life cycle, all it takes is a Tomont or an adult parasite to have survived the week or two of treatment to be able to start a new population. While its numbers slowly increase, it is at this time that we think our tanks are Ich free and when they do become a large enough population to become visible again, we can fall into that trap of assuming they are just always in the tank no matter what we do. It is for all of the above reasons that I firmly believe that the hypo salinity method is our best and at times, only option. A fishes own resistance to the parasite may also be mistaken as a reef safe medication having worked. All it takes though is for a stress event to occur within the tank, and the fish may lose their resistance allowing the parasite to make a full come back.
Wild Fish always have it so what is the big deal? - Well, going back to the life cycles of the parasite, an adult parasite on a fish in the wild will drop off after seven days or so of feeding on the fish to enter its reproductive mode, given the expanse of the ocean, how likely is it that the offspring that hatch out are likely to encounter the same fish again? Where as in our enclosed little boxes, when those offspring hatch out, they have a readily available fish that is not going very far at any time soon, and is most likely the same fish their daddy was on as well. With the fish enclosed or trapped amongst hundreds if not thousands of free swimming, ready to attack parasites, you can see the problem in thinking that a wild fish in the ocean deals with the same problems as our captive kept specimens.
Well, I hope to have at least taught you what it takes to be rid of this parasite once and for all, you just have to decide that you WILL NOT add anything at all to your tank unless it has been through a quarantine period. I can not stress the importance of this enough.
